Apparatus for reducing hot oil-cake.



24 i .6fli15" MATERIAL COMMINUTibN My 7 I I 43 OR DISINTEGRATION No. 821,095. PATENTED MAY 22, 1906. A. W. FRENCH. APPARATUS FOR REDUCING HOT OIL CAKE.

APPLIGATION FILED NOV. 26. 1904.

2 SHEETSSHEET 1.

2&1. SOLID MATERIAL 00 MMINUTION 3 OR DISINTEGRATION PATENTED MAY 22, 1906.

A. W. FRENCH. APPARATUS FOR REDUCING HOT OIL CAKE.

APPLIOATION FILED NOV. 26.1904.

Z SHEETSSHEET 2.

{/af W [[iigr/Lel J;

ALFRED W. FRENCH, or PIQUA, oinofl APPARATUS FOR REDUCING HOT OIL-CAKE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

; atented Iviay 22, 1906.

Application filed November 26, 1904. Serial No. 234,367.

have invented a new and useful Improvement in Apparatus for Reducing Hot Oil- Cake, of which the following is a specification. This invention relates to apparatus for trimming, cooling, drying, and reducing oilcake.

The cakes or large flat slabs of meal from which the oil has been expressed in the oilpress, commonly termed oil-cake, are hot and contain more or less moisture when taken from the press, being dense and of a nature such as to render grinding into meal impractical or tedious. Oil-cake is ground or reduced to a finely-dividd condition or meal and utilized as feed for stock and for other purposes, but owing to the warm, moist, and stm y nature of the cakes when taken from the press they should be allowed to cool and dry before they can be reduced to meal in the attrition-mill. At the present time it is customary to trim off the soft ed e portions of the cakes from which the oil as not been completely expressed and which is re-pressed to recover its oil. Then a crew of workmen truck the warm cake from the press-room and pile it up in the cake-room, where it remains for forty-eight hours or more to cool, and after cooling it is taken down by another crew and again trucked to the breaker, after which it passes to the grinding-mill, where it is reduced to meal. This method requires the cakes to be twice handled, entailing considerable labor and loss of time, and valuable floorspace in the oil-mill is occupied by the cakes while drying and cooling.

The object of this invention 1s to produce a desirable and efficient apparatus into which the oil-cakes are fed in the hot moist condition in which they are taken from the press and which breaks or reduces, cools, dries, and grinds the cake or prepares the cake for grinding in a continuous operation.

In the accompanying drawings,-consisting of two sheets, Figure l is asectional elevation, more or less diagrammatic, of an apparatus for trimmin cooling, drying, and reducing oil-cake em odying the invention. Fig. 2 is a sectional elevation, on an enlarged scale, of the trimming and breaking machines. Fig. 3 is a fragmentary plan view, partly in section, on an enlarged scale, of the trimming and breaking machines.

Like letters of reference refer to like parts in the several figures.

A represents a trimming-machine for removing the soft marginal portions from the cakes, and B a breaker or machine in which the cakes are broken up or reduced into small pieces, varying, for instance, from relatively fine particles to pieces approximating the size of hickory-nuts.

A trimming-machine of the kind disclosed in United States Letters Patent reissued to me June 9, 1903, No. 12,118, which automatically discharges the cakes as they are trimmed, is preferably employed, and the relative position of the trimmer and breaker for greatest convenience is such that the former feeds the trimmed cakes directly into the to pass through the spaces between the teeth of the stationary blade. An inclined feedchute I)", located at the discharge end of the trimming-machine, leads to the throat of the breaker, and a drop-pan b is pivoted on the Y discharge end of the trimming-machine over the lower end of the feed-chute b, said pan being normally held in a horizontal position by a spring I)". The cakes are successively fed horizontally out of the trimming-ma chine, and each cake rests with one end on the upper end of the inclined chute b and the other end on the droppan. The weight of the cake causes the pan to swing downwardly,

as indicated by dotted lines in Fig. 1, whereby the cake is gently lowered onto the inclined chute, down which it is moved by gravity, or preferably by a feed mechanism 1)", into the breaker B, between the stationary and rotary blades, which break the cakes up into small pieces. The broken cake is discharged through an opening in the bottom of the breaker-casing.

Other kinds of trimming-machines could be used and also other forms of breakers adapted to break or otherwise divide the warm cakes into relatively small pieces, as stated. The term breaker is herein used with this broader meaning.

speed that the cake is retained in the cooler the cakes will be cooled by contact with the moisture by means of an air-blast or other cooling and drying medium. It is not necessary to here describe the cooler and drier further than to say that it is provided with an automatic discharge device 0, which allows the cake to collect in the the cooler and then removes or discharges it at such a rate of until cooled and dried to the necessary extent. A cooler and drier suitable for the purpose is fully described in my application for United States Letters Patent, filed November 14, 1904, Serial No. 232,578.

D represents an attrition or other mill of known construction, to which the broken cake is conveyed automatically and without handling as it is discharged from the cooler and drier and in which thebroken and cooled cake is ground or reduced to meal. From theniill D the ground oil-cake can be discharged at any suitable place, as by a conveyer i and chute E.

By breaking or reducing the cake before cooling it is cooled much more rapidly, and the cooling renders the cake more brittle, so that it can be much more readily ground or finely pulverized in the attrition-mill, and much less labor is required to drive the attrition-mill because the cake is not so sticky and does not have the tendency to clog the mill which the warm cake has. According to the present methods the warm whole cakes are frequently placed in racks, so that all sides of air to give the cake a li hter and better appearance than when pulled or packed close together on the floor. A great deal of space is required to thus rack the cakes, and a long time is necessary to properly cool and dry them. By means of the cooler described in this application the current of air passing through the warm reduced cake dries and cools the same very rapidly and produces an improvement in the color of the cake, which makes lighter meal than can otherwise be obtained.

The relative arrangement of the machines described and the kind and arrangement of the conveyers for moving the broken cake from the breaker to the cooler and drier and from the latter to the other machine will depend upon the installation of the apparatus in the mill and may differ in different plants. In the apparatus illustrated the broken cake is carried by a screw conveyer e from the breaker B to the lower end of an elevator e, by which it is lifted and delivered into a feedhopper f, which is located above and discharges into the open upper end of the cooler and drier C. Thelatter discharges the cooled 6c and dried cake to a second screw conveyer g, which moves it to the lower end of a second elevator g, by which it is liftedandTlelivered into a bin or receptacle h, which is located above and discharges into the mill D. The bin or receptacle is preferably employed, as it enables the mill to be stopped whenever necessary or desirable, and affords a container to receive and hold the broken cake while the mill is out of action; but the bin it can be dispensed with and the broken cake delivered by the conveyer directly into the mill. The meal is conveyed from the mill to the bagging device by a screw conveyer'i, and elevator i.

In mills where a trimmer is not used or when for other reasons it is desirable the hot cake can be delivered to the breaker manually or by other atuomatic means. In either case the operation is continuous-that is, the material does. not have to be handledfrom the time the cakes enter the breaker until the meal is discharged from the grinding-mill or bagging device.

I claim as my invention.

1. In an apparatus for treating oil-cake, the combination of a machine for reducing the hot oilcake into pieces or particles, means for conveying the reduced cake from the reducing-machine to a cooler and, drier, and a cooler and drier in which the reduced cake is cooled and dried, substantially as set forth.

2. In an apparatus for treating oil-cake, the combination of a machine for reducing the hot oil-cake into pieces or particles, means for conveying the reduced cake from the reducing-machine to a cooler and drier, and a cooler and drier consisting of a receptacle in which the cake is subjected to an aircurrent to cool and dry it, substantially as set forth.

3. In an apparatus for treating oil-cake, the combination of a machine for reducing the hot oil-cake into pieces or particles, means for conveying the reduced cake from the reducing-machine to a cooler and drier, a cooler and drier in which the reduced cake is cooled and dried, means for conveying the reduced cake from the cooler and drier to a grinding-mill, and a grinding-mill for the reduced cake, substantially as set forth.

WVitness my hand this 14th day of November, 1904.

ALFRED W. FRENCH. Witnesses:

J NO. GrNoccHro, C. C. THOMPSON. 

